Ai Tampa Rough Cut Film Group: MFS Junne 10 Matt Jimenez

Monthly Filmmaker Spotlight

June 2010

Matt Jimenez

By Robert S. Pearson

I met Matt in my 4th quarter at Ai, and I could tell right away that he was an easy going guy with a desire to learn. Matt has worked on all the projects I have headed outside of school, as well as most of my projects for class. He is a valuable asset to any set, and his positive reputation recently won him the title of Ai Tampa Rough Cut President. I am proud of Matt and how far he's come in the last few years, so I thought who better to invite into the Spotlight than Matt Jimenez. As with all the filmmaker Spotlights, I started by asking Matt, why film?

Matt-

For the longest time I was just kind of floating by, writing, drawing, acting, and even photography. I considered them more of hobbies at the time, but then there was a situation where I might not be able to do any of those things at all and stuck working at a job I hate. I felt like I was wilting, I decided to combine all of the art I love to do and go to school. I'm very visual, I have ideas, pictures, and entire movies in my head that I want to see come to life on the screen.

With such a diverse group of interests, I asked Matt about some of his influences outside of filmmaking.

Matt-

My biggest influence has always been my family, they have always supported me. I've never really run into the problems of people telling me I couldn't do want I want or not supporting me, I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by people who support me and want me to be successful and happy.

One of my favorite questions is alway, who are some of your favorite filmmakers?

Favorite Filmmakers

With inspiration coming from filmmakers that tell such colorful stories, I asked Matt about his over all goal as a filmmaker.

Matt-

My over goal as a filmmaker is do make my ideas comes to life and hopefully be successful and happy at it whether through directing, writing or whatever means to make that happen. I want to work on big movie sets and work my way up to the top learning and gaining as much experience as I can.

Next I asked Matt about his favorite films.

Favorite Movies

I was curious what Matt's plans for the future are.

Matt-

My plans are to see Rough Cut grow and expand. I want to see all film students become excited and to use Rough Cut as a useful resource for meeting other filmmakers, learning about the industry, finding what they are best at and what they want to do. At the very least to just be apart of something.